


Somefin special in the water

by 1helluvabutler



Category: Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Aquariums, Attempt at Humor, M/M, Mistaken Identity, giftfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-26
Updated: 2018-12-26
Packaged: 2019-09-28 03:15:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,707
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17174804
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/1helluvabutler/pseuds/1helluvabutler
Summary: The company renting out the aquarium’s conference room should be filled with professional people; and yet, Kisame still wants to go over there during the break, tell some people off, and make awkward small talk about marine life with othersaka the one where Kisame’s sure he should stop talking immediately, like, right now, before the gorgeous man gets mad at him and Kisame has to go jump in the shark tank





	Somefin special in the water

**Author's Note:**

> akatsuki secret santa gift for xwannaflyx !!! I'm sorry it's not a gala, but I hope I did your prompt justice anyway <3 hope your holidays were fun!

Kisame ground his teeth and made a noise so angry in the back of his throat, Zabuza rolled his eyes and lowered his crossword puzzle enough to give Kisame a _look_ over the top of it.  “Stop it.”

Kisame wanted to listen to him, he really did, but he couldn’t help being peeved when the situation on screen was potentially disturbing more than just the staff members.

“I don’t like it either, alright?” Zabuza’s voice added with a rustle of pages when he noticed his words were being ignored.

Kisame clicked a button and the monitor gave him a clearer view of the showroom, the people inside suddenly a lot more visible than a moment ago. Ignored Zabuza sighed in the background.

The monitors stationed here were primarily meant for checking up on the aquarium’s animals, not visitors -unlike the ones wired into the security teams’ cramped office-, but they still did a decent enough job of showing off the businessmen wandering around the maze of glass tanks. The fancy businessmen, source of Kisame’s current simmering ire.

Important clients or not, if another one of those stuck-up snobs decided to knock on the glass like little kids with no concept of reading signs, Kisame was going over there, _mad._

“They’re so loud _,_ they better not disturb the hammerheads,” Kisame said, glancing at the volume sign in the screen’s corner, indicating he’d be assaulted by a wave of noisy chatter if he turned the speakers on.

“The break’s only going to last for 20 more minutes or so, then it’ll be quiet.”

Kisame pressed down a sigh and kept his eyes on the monitor.

It wasn’t all the businessmen acting like unimpressed children, just the one with silver? gray? Hair apparently making fun of the electric eels if his gestures were anything to go by.  A man with red hair and a dead expression held a stare-down with the aquarium’s resident octopus, while his companion with an unruly blond ponytail squatted next to the tank of horseshoe crabs. Some guy with burn scars made kissy faces at the seahorses, ignoring the two people pacing behind him gesturing heatedly with phones glued to their ears.

Almost like kids.

There were more people Kisme couldn’t see, probably just as bad. He had absolutely no doubt in his mind that at least 2/3 of the suits there had stayed in the conference hall to drain the coffee machine.

Some big, fancy company, Uchihari corporations, or at least Uchi-something. Kisame hadn’t been paying that much attention to details in the memos plastered on the staffroom’s whiteboard. All he knew for certain, was that they were apparently important enough, and also _rich_ enough to rent out a solid quarter of the aquarium for a single meeting. No other visitors even allowed in the vicinity of the meeting room, which was a little ridiculous in Kisame’s opinion. On the other hand, it saved Kisame the hour or so he would have normally spent wiping smudgy handprints off the glass - since most of the tired businessmen seemed to have more self-restraint than children.

Most of them, Kisame reminded himself as he watched the especially noisy person flip off an eel.

“I’m going to go stand there and look threatening,” Kisame said, getting up and ignoring the pops in his shoulder blades. Zabuza didn’t even spare him a glance this time.

“You do that.”

 

As Kisame made his way down the hallways, he realized he didn’t really have a good way to get them to be quiet; these were “important” people with suits and briefcases, who looked like they didn’t have any time or patience for respecting a ruffled biologist’s wishes.  Damn, he should have taken a proper uniform shirt. Or a name card. Or at least _something,_ Kisame mulled, trying to straighten his extremely informal shirt as he went under the temporarily placed thin rope disconnecting the “businessmen's quarter” from the rest of the public aquarium. ‘Please don’t bother the animals’ mostly worked on normal families, and not even all the time.

He had less than two hallways to think of a polite enough way to tell the suits to shut up; at least that’s what the plan was until he turned the second to last corner and ended up face-to-side with a person.

There was somebody by the big shark tank, the one that took up an entire huge wall and went up straight to the ceiling, and made your skin glow bright blue under the lights if you stood close enough to it. One of the businessmen, if the suit pants and dark dress shirt were anything to go by. A jacket hung folded over the man’s slender arm.

Even as he slowed down a bit, Kisame thought about just ignoring him and passing by to go tell off the noisy one. But something, _something_ about the way the man stood, the way the spots of refracting lights glimmered on his dark hair, and the odd expression of serene solemnity he watched the tank’s occupants with - an array of little things that, for some reason, pulled Kisame closer and plucked the immediate need to go elsewhere out of his thoughts.

He should be going and doing…something, a part of him supplied quietly, even as it sensed a losing battle. The sharks in the tank were doing things and if the man’s face hadn’t been so serious, he almost looked like he was enjoying himself.

Watching him was as mesmerizing as watching the sharks.

“She likes you,” Kisame cleared his throat, conjuring up a smile worthy of a customer service job as he approached, feeling suddenly like it was the right thing to do. It wasn’t this guy’s fault his coworker was acting rude.

The stranger turned at Kisame’s voice, and - _shit_.

Every single thought Kisame had been so meticulously planning disappeared at the sight of the man’s beautiful features under the bluish light. His tongue felt like rubber. Kisame knew he was staring and there was absolutely nothing he could do about it. He was stunned. How on earth-

“The shark, I mean, she, uh- body language.” He felt words rushing from his mouth, even though the man hadn’t even answered anything. Not good. Kisame was finally able to get his eyes off the incredibly handsome man to watch the shark in front of them change direction and swim straight up.

“She normally does that with people who feed her,” Kisame continued somehow, _for some reason,_ viciously aware of the man’s eyes still on him. “But since you’re not here to feed her, she probably, uh.” He stopped himself from saying anything more, mouth abnormally dry.  He felt like he was sweating. As they watched the shark start another circle across the vast tank, Kisame was already trying to come up with the best excuse to leave immediately before he made an even bigger fool of himself.

“You work here?” 

Oh god, the man answered before he could leave. And his voice was so _nice_. Kisame dared a glance sideways to see the pretty man was looking at him again.

“Marine biologist,” Kisame croaked with a nod. He knew he didn’t really look like one right now, stuck in nylon sports shirt (it dried quick, okay) with a pair of utility gloves sticking out of his belt; absolutely nothing on him to indicate being employed except his knowledge of the aquarium and the key card tucked in his back pocket. He waved a hand at the tank in front of them. “I mostly work with the sharks.”

The man made a noise that sounded more polite than genuinely interested, and Kisame couldn't blame him. Maybe if Kisame was a fancy businessman in a suit, he wouldn't be that interested in sharks either.

There was a beat of silence, during which Kisame tried to gather enough decisiveness to (reluctantly) leave the pretty man alone and instead go hover warningly near the man with silver hair, who seemed to have momentarily quietened down, entertained by mashing the flashy buttons that made the jellyfish tank change colors, the ones that usually captivated small children.

Suddenly the man beside him shifted and Kisame snapped his just-opened mouth back shut. “I apologize for our company’s intrusion. We didn’t mean to disrupt your business.”

“Oh no, it’s not a problem,” Kisame said immediately, because it really _wasn’t_ a problem, the aquarium actually made more money thanks to the ‘intrusion’, _and_ Kisame didn’t have to spend extra time cleaning tiny, waist-height handprints from the glass.  Well, something like that, Kisame thought as the figure with silver hair flashed through his head. “I just thought it’s a bit weird to hold an important company meeting in a place like this.”

An unreadable look was shot Kisame’s way, and Kisame uselessly decided the man’s dark eyes were tired and very pretty. “I like aquariums.“

“Really?”

“They’re peaceful,” the man said after a short pause, tired and very pretty eyes wandering from Kisame to watch a stingray ruffle past their feet. “It’s a welcome change of pace from the office.”

“I guess that’s a good point,” Kisame murmured, also following the stingray. “I’m not sure what I would do if I couldn’t work in an aquarium.”

“Is it interesting?” The question sounded genuinely curious, and not all condescending or snide like Kisame was half-expecting it to be. What a nice voice, Kisame’s brain reminded him helpfully.

“Everything here’s interesting, at least to me,” Kisame grinned. “I love animals, ‘specially sharks.”

“I don’t know too much about them.” Mystery man’s words sounded like an apology, something like regret flashing across his expression for the briefest moment before he looked at Kisame again. “Work keeps me from places like this.”

“I can tell you some stuff if you want,” Kisame shrugged, trying not to sound too eager about it. He did tours sometimes, answered questions, let kids admire his blue hair and swirling tattoos.

There was a solid 10 seconds of silence and Kisame was suddenly very aware how odd and pointless his offer must have seemed, and how much he wanted to leave now, immediately; it wasn’t like the guy was at the aquarium to look at animals, he was there to sit in a meeting room and conduct important business, and nurse a cup of coffee and stare blankly at the sharks when break time came.

And yet.

“Please do,” said the man finally, cracking the smallest hint of a smile at Kisame, who was pretty sure he was over-worrying at this point.

Kisame could feel a toothy grin of his own spreading over his face and he had to look back into the depths of the tank to stop himself from going red. “Well, we got 19 sharks total in this tank-”

Gorgeous mystery man was a good listener; true, he was quiet for the most part, but he nodded along and his eyes dutifully followed Kisame’s fingers when Kisame pointed out certain creatures in the tank. Occasionally he asked clipped questions, and Kisame was over the moon at the idea of the guy actually listening to him. Slightly suspicious, but still over the moon.

“ -that big one over there in the back? That’s Samehada,” Kisame beamed, pointing a knuckle towards a massive bull shark lurking in the tank’s backdrop. Old scars from his life in the wild littered the shark’s gray skin, showing off an impressive resume of violence from tangling with both humans and other sharks alike. Samehada the fighter. “He used to be so mean we had to keep him separately. I mean, bull sharks are usually aggressive anyway, but this guy was especially vicious.”

Gorgeous mystery man raised an eyebrow at him.

“Not sure what changed. I’d like to think he got used to us,” Kisame said, not even entirely sure if that was really what had been asked. He really hoped it was. At least gorgeous mystery man seemed to be pleased with the answer, lines on his face softening comfortably as he looked back into the blue water. “He’s pretty alright now.”

A moment of comfortable silence lapsed over them and Kisame scoured the tank for more creatures to talk about, casting (hopefully) sneaky glances towards the businessman from the corner of his eye.

This seemed unreal. Kisame had originally come here to look angrily at a sort-of customer, and instead he ended up talking about his job with another sort-of customer. A much better one, if his impressions so far were correct, what with the guy’s polite behavior, (admittedly charming) looks and the air of mystery, and most importantly, the desire, or at least the patience to hear about marine life when offered the chance.

Kisame swallowed. Had they gotten closer to each other at some point? He really hadn’t noticed the exact moment, but Kisame was almost certain that earlier he hadn’t been near enough to catch the tiny raven-shaped metal clasp binding the stranger’s long black hair together, laying there flat instead of a normal hair tie. Flashy, but fitting.

“Could've sworn I saw Tsunami just now,” Kisame muttered to himself, directing his eyes back into the water to stop staring and instead try and find his favorite tiny shark.

“Tsunami?”

“She's a young sand tiger, one of my personal favorites,” Kisame clarified. “She likes getting scritched, kinda like a cat, right, so she’ll swim up immediately whenever we get in the tank.”

To his credit, this was the first thing the man had actually looked truly surprised at. “You swim with them?”

Kisame was reminded that not everyone knew about all the fun details of his job. “Sure I do,” he beamed. “It’s one of the best parts.”

“It’s not dangerous?”

“Unless you provoke them on purpose, no,” Kisame said, watching the sparkle of wonder in mystery man’s eyes. “And if you know what you’re doing, it’s even safer.”

Mystery man thought about something for a moment. “Which one is-”

The question fell short as a loud swear echoed off the walls and Kisame’s frown returned as a hammerhead closest to the glass flinched at the sound. The man beside him noticed it too.

“They’re not fond of noise?”

“Not really, ‘specially the hammerheads. We’re working on something to keep the inside of the tanks quiet, but until then there’s not much else to do except keep noisy idiots like that further away if we can,” Kisame said, almost rolling his eyes until it clicked what he had just said out loud. Oh no.

“I- sorry, that was over the line, I’m sure your coworker is very nice and all, but-”

To his surprise, the man cracked a fraction of a smile. “No need. Hidan does excellent work, but his personality can be a bit, ah, rough, to say the least, especially outside the office.”

They both looked over to where the silver-haired worker was back to scowling at the electric eels.

“I’ll make sure to remind him of professional behaviour when the meeting resumes.” The man waved him off when Kisame tried to object.  “It wouldn’t be right for the animals to be uncomfortable because of us.”

“I don’t want to get anybody in trouble,” Kisame said, feeling sheepish. Getting somebody fired was definitely not on his list, at least not like this.

“Although you were prepared to tell him off?” The man raised an amused eyebrow when he heard Kisame’s embarrassed grumble of  ‘it’s my job to do that’. “You won’t be. Hidan has been overdue for an evaluation in any case.”

Kisame had no idea if the guy was telling the truth or not, but at least he didn’t seem to be mad about having his coworker being called a noisy idiot.

“You have the power to tell him that?” Kisame grinned at the thoughtful noise he received, gorgeous mystery man shifting comfortably as he stared after the shark passing above their heads.

“I should hope so,” mystery man said. “I employ him after all.”

Kisame’s stomach dropped straight to the bottom of his shoes. “Ah.”

Until this point, the man’s dark eyes had been mostly following the largest hammerhead swimming laps around the tank. Hearing Kisame’s strangled noise of surprise, he looked over to see a no-doubt rapidly paling Kisame. “Are you alright?”

Kisame was torn somewhere between bolting back to the staff room, and falling comatose to the ground. “So you’re the-” he started, cutting himself off.

“CEO and owner of Uchiha corporations,” the man finished, a note of amusement coloring both his voice and expression. He turned enough to offer his unoccupied hand. “Itachi Uchiha.”

If Kisame’s body hadn’t been so preoccupied with going numb with panic, he would have payed more attention to just how soft the man’s fingers were. “Kisame Hoshigaki.”

Itachi Uchiha. Rich kid, business prodigy, exceptionally young for his position, the very same guy renting out the meeting hall. Kisame had just practically insulted one of his employees to his face.

Oh no.

Oh no, no, _no._

If there was anything he could ever blame for taking years off his life, it would be this, a part of Kisame’s brain registered with suspicious calmness while the rest of him was praying for the ground to swallow him for not recognizing the guy before.

Sure, the man looked important, but he didn’t look.... _important._ Not stuffy and middle-aged, visibly hoisting up a planet-sized ego as his own personal sun, like Kisame always imagined a CEO or a bigwig company owner to be. The guy wasn't even wearing a full suit, for god's sake.

He just looked like a normal guy. A very pretty, very serious-looking normal guy, who just happened to own and run a big company.

Oh god, Kisame might as well quit his job now.

“That- what I just said about-”

The Uchiha man had gone back to watching the sharks, not aware or not acknowledging Kisame’s inner meltdown. “It’s alright, Hidan really has been overdue for an evaluation, just like a few other members from his department. Your comment won’t affect the results, I give you my word.”

Kisame paused to think. “Right,” he said finally, still a bit cautious. The man really did seem to mean it, though.

“What’s that?” The Uchiha’s voice snapped Kisame out of his spiralling thoughts, and he looked at the scruffy creature the pretty man was pointing at.

“That’s a tasseled wobbegong,” Kisame said, glad to be back to talking about the animals. “We call that one ‘carpet’.”

“Carpet,” Itachi echoed flatly.

“Carpet,” Kisame nodded. “He lives on the bottom of the seabed and he’s got all those little branchy-looking bits around his him -that’s called the fringe, by the way-, and he does sort of look like a carpet, so we thought-”

Kisame got into talking about the wobbegong, grinning when Itachi did finally, quietly, admit the creature did vaguely remind him of an ugly carpet. Kisame then asked if Itachi thought the animal was ugly or if he would just make an ugly rug, and he laughed as Itachi stared holes into his skull.

Something inside Kisame eased up considerably, seeing the guy still wanting to talk along to Kisame’s antics, even after revealing to be perhaps the biggest and most important businessman in the city, maybe even the country. It was fun.

Footsteps echoed off the concrete and both of them turned to see a younger man with a pretty face and a mean expression walk a few more steps towards them; cold eyes passed over Kisame to stare expectantly at his boss. Kisame noticed with a jolt that most of the businessmen had already filed back into the conference hall, leaving the room behind them almost empty.

Seeing that he caught their attention, the man tapped his watch impatiently. “Brother, the meeting.”

Blinking once in well-concealed surprise, Itachi’s eyes flitted to his own wristwatch.  “Of course.” Apparently satisfied with his brother’s answer, the newcomer turned on his heel and disappeared into the meeting hall.

With practiced ease, Itachi unfolded the suit jacket from his arm and slipped it on, the suit somehow still pristine and creaseless despite its detour from its owner’s shoulders. “I’m sorry, Mr. Hoshigaki, but I must be getting back now. Thank you for your company.”

Kisame tried not to be too happy about Itachi remembering his name. “I’m sorry about disturbing you on your break,” he said instead, making the CEO pause in the middle of straightening his collar, a tiny frown marring his expression.

“I enjoyed it,” Itachi said, and finished up his adjustments in the tank’s reflection. He sounded sincere. “It isn’t often I get to have interactions like this.”

Kisame watched him adjust his cufflinks before his brain suddenly decided the silence should be broken again. “Well, I’m gonna be working all day today, so if you want to-” he trailed off as soon as he realized what he was saying. Of course Itachi Uchiha wouldn’t say yes to an idea like that, he had stuff to do.

“Mr. Hoshigaki-”

“Kisame, please,” Kisame interrupted, heart pounding.

Itachi paused momentarily and a hint of a smile curled around the corners of his lips. “Kisame,” he amended. He looked like he was choosing his next words carefully. “I’m sure my employees would appreciate another break or two before the day is over.”

Kisame was positive he was about 4 comments away from going into cardiac arrest. “Right,” he managed out, trying to control his smile into something not too overwhelmingly happy. “I’m sure they would.”

The look he received was mysterious, but in a good way. Itachi finally finished adjusting his cufflinks.

“Until later, Kisame.”

“Of course,” Kisame smiled, returning Itachi’s polite nod. He really wanted to think he wasn’t imagining the flash of Itachi’s own smile just as the man turned and left to resume his fancy meeting.

Jeez, Kisame thought, turning to look at the tankful of marine life in front of him, maybe he didn’t have to quit his job for insulting an employee to his boss’ face after all. Maybe. Old Samehada in the back bobbed his head agreeingly and Kisame stopped fighting the smile he could feel blooming on his face.

Y’know, some businessmen really weren’t that bad.

**Author's Note:**

> later zabuza comes back from his evening feeding rounds and finds a red-faced and stupefied kisame sitting in the staff room with itachi’s personal number penned on the backside of a business card 
> 
> time-to-change-away on tumblr!


End file.
